Published 6:42 am, Thursday, July 7, 2011

Charles Smith likened the pain that shot through his face to "being stabbed in the nose with an ice pick connected to a spark plug."

The 86-year-old Plainview man is describing the disease known as tic douloureux, or trigeminal neuralgia. The disease is universally known as causing the most pain a human can feel, so it would seem Smith isn’t exaggerating in his excruciating description.

Tic douloureux is a rare disease estimated to be in only about one in 15,000 people, although the actual ratio is thought to be even higher due to misdiagnosis. Also known as the "suicide disease," 95 percent of its victims take their own lives because they feel there is no escape.

In Smith’s case, the disease is caused by arteries and veins wrapped around nerves in his head that constrict the nerves when pumping blood, causing enormous pain. However, with today’s advanced technology, there is a cure for this disease.

"There is a light at the tunnel," Smith said.

Thirty-one years ago, Smith began feeling pain on the left side of his face. He was referred to a neurosurgeon in Lubbock and told there was no cure for his disease, only temporary relief.

The doctor tried many different procedures, all of which lasted short periods before the severe pain returned.

Many years ago Smith read an article in the Plainview Herald about a local woman with tic douloureux who was going to Pittsburgh for treatment.

He went to Pittsburgh in 1980 to meet the doctor who invented the surgery.

In the procedure, the surgeon cuts about 2½ inches behind the ear to expose the offending nerve. The nerve is then cut and removed.

Smith underwent the surgery and got relief from the pain for 15 years.

The pain came back when the nerves fused together.

In 1995, Smith was referred to a doctor in Houston where they preformed a surgery in which they wrapped the nerve with Teflon. Again, the pain subsided for 15 years, only to return again.

In his next consultation, the Houston physician suggested that Smith have a brand new procedure known as gamma knife surgery. Parrish felt because of Smith’s age and the success rate of the gamma knife procedure, he would be an excellent candidate.

After three trips to Houston, all kinds of tests, MRIs, blood work-ups, angiograms, a complete medical history from his other doctors and visits with the five doctors on the gamma knife team, Smith was allowed to have the surgery.

In the process, the patient — under general anesthesia — wears a metal brace with weights to keep the head and neck perfectly still.

The patient is then put into an MRI-like machine where gamma rays are very precisely shot into the brain to remove tumors and lesions.

One of the many advantages to the surgery is that the patient is able to go home the day after surgery.

Coincidentally, not long after Smith came home from Houston, an article about gamma knife surgery appeared in Dr. Peter Gott’s column of the Plainview Herald.

Throughout the years, Smith has helped many sufferers of tic douloureux by giving information about the disease and various surgeries that can be done, basically reminding them that "there is a light at the end of the tunnel."

Despite all of his pain and suffering, Smith is glad that the message about a successful cure for tic douloureux is being widely publicized.